An Alabaster Flask (Luke 7:36-8:8)
Written by Pastor Fausel   
 Grace, mercy and peace be to you …

Have you been paying attention to the artwork in the upper corner of our bulletins lately?   One of my joys used to be explaining the meaning of that art to the folks over at the Oxmoor Living Center when we did Saturday night services over there.

Back then, most of the art was a reflection of some of the standard religious icons used in the church.  But lately, what we have is an artist concept of something going on in one of the readings.

Last week there was a drawing of a gate in a brick wall… which at first lost me.   But then I realized that it was to represent the setting where Jesus met the funeral procession bearing the son of the widow from the town of Nain.

Now this week’s artwork portrays a flask, given that the flask appears in our gospel reading for today … but, I’m really lost to what that pile of things next to it is, maybe coins?? Any other ideas, I’m open.

But let’s go with what we have for sure as the Gospel speaks about a woman with an undesirable past coming to a dinner hosted by a Pharisee named Simon … and there we see her … anointing Jesus’ feet with the ointment contained in an Alabaster flask.

Alabaster is not something we hear a lot about these days.  The reference immediately brings to mind those words of the song, “America, the Beautiful”…
 that perhaps you, like me, learned in Kindergarten…. “Thine Alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears …”

I always thought that might be a better description of heaven than earth … but that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

An alabaster flask… definitively NOT a potter’s clay jar.  We can be assured that what was inside was worth a whole lot more than the container … and the container was of the best material available at that time.

And where do we read the contents of the flask go?… on Jesus’ feet.  Not on His head or his hair … but on the lowliest part of the human body.  The part that was washed when coming into a house by the lowliest servant.

All that underlined the point that Jesus made when He Himself washed the Disciple’s feet.   He was taking the role of the lowliest servant on their behalf.

And so was this woman, then, with respect to Jesus, as if she were not worthy of any higher way of paying her respect.   So she washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, dries them with her hair and anoints them with some very expensive ointment.

Now, this is not the only time this kind of expensive anointing of Jesus occurs in scripture.   Today, our reading is in Luke Chapter 7 … early in Jesus’ ministry.   Later, just before His arrest, Jesus is anointed again… (Jn 12:3ff)

And on that occasion, Judas … yes, Judas the betrayer, Judas, the money keeper for the disciples, objects to the anointing saying that the ointment could have been sold for a whole year’s wages and that money used to feed the poor instead of this frivolous here-today-gone-tomorrow anointing.

Well.  Those are the things we need to get our arms around today.  What was the motivation for anointing Jesus… in the house of Simon, the Pharisee?  

Now … instead of the anointing being objected to because of the expense of the ointment … here Simon the Pharisee objects because of the person who is doing it … If Jesus knew what sort of person she was … a “sinner”  Simon was thinking … then Jesus Himself should have objected.

But instead Jesus tells Simon and the other guests a parable about a money lender and two debtors … both of whom had been released from their debts.   And the question is … which of the two would be the most appreciative? … Obviously, it would be the one owing the larger debt.

Jesus then goes on to explain who corresponds to the debtors in the parable … Simon, who sees no debt at all, and has forgone even the most basic common courtesy to Jesus, is the one who owes little … as compared to the woman, whose act of appreciation represented by foot washing and anointing is the one who owed much.

Now notice.  In the parable, the debts are forgiven first.  Then come the responses.  
In other words, the response is not the reason why the debts were cancelled.  Why were they cancelled?   Simply because of the grace of the Money lender.  

And we could go one step further.  So far we have grace on the part of the money lender.   And now we have to talk about faith.   Jesus tells the woman:   “Your faith has saved you.”  

What that means is her faith has connected her to the grace of God, granting her forgiveness.  She has the forgiveness God is offering to her.  She has received it by faith.  Her response is evidence of that.

In the case of Simon, however, the grace God offers Him is of no value to Him, because He has not received it.   How do we know?  Because we see that there is no response.   We see Him seem to ignore the fact that he even owes a debt to God.

And so … Simon is not condemned by his lack of hospitality to Jesus … but he stands under condemnation because of his lack of faith, his lack of acknowledgement of his need for God’s grace … which has led to his lack of hospitality.

So we see here, in the case of the woman, the grace of God being received by faith leading to a response of love … a show of appreciation for the free gift of forgiveness she has received.

Now … where does all this leave us?   Let’s consider what is the same for us.  First, the grace of God…  the forgiveness of our sins for the sake of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the same.   And so, as a result of God’s act of love on our behalf … His Grace … forgiveness of sins … is available to all.

Now that’s grace.  What about faith?  Ah, faith is something of the heart.  And actually faith itself is something that only God can see.   Which is where Jesus was going with his host, Simon the Pharisee.

Jesus methodically points out the response of faith of the woman as opposed to Simon’s own lack of response …   Her kissing His feet as opposed to no such display by Simon … Her tears, as opposed to his denying him water, Her drying her tears with her hair, her anointing of his feet with ointment….  

And then Jesus makes the connection for him …  what she has done  is a demonstration of Her love, because her sins, which were many, had been forgiven.   Such forgiveness comes through faith, and then the response follows.   Faith people can’t see … but the response of  faith, people can.

You see where this is going?  Let’s ignore the obvious question for a moment about our own individual responses to God’s love in Christ Jesus … the gift of His Grace … and go to the motivation for that response.

How do you FEEL toward God … about His having forgiven all your sins?

Jesus’ statement to Simon was true then as it is true today: … “Therefore I tell you, her sins which are many, are forgiven— for she loved much.  But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”

If you were here last week, you might recall that we talked about our giving a bit.  And we emphasized the point that when we give in church we are giving to God out of love … in response to His free gift of salvation, in response to His forgiveness of our sins …. In response to His supplying all our needs, in response to His being there for us in our time of need … and the list could go on …

We are not giving so that the church can pay the utility bills or keep the lights on.   God takes care of that … through our giving.  But our motivation to write a check and put it in the offering plate is the same motivation the woman in our text had to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears.

We mentioned earlier that the other time this anointing of Jesus occurs in Scripture Judas protested that the ointment should have been sold and the proceeds used to help the poor.

But you see, Judas was in that mind set that giving was all about supporting ministry … not about personally showing love to God.  Jesus corrected him on that score.

So.  What today would represent an alabaster flask of ointment … for us? Or for you?  Something very valuable … something for God that would show your personal love for Him in Christ Jesus… your appreciation of all that He has done and is doing for you?

Today an alabaster flask full of ointment might look more like a good chunk of time… rather than a chunk of cash, for instance.   

A couple of people this past week took good chunks of their time, and out of Love for God, beautified the parking lot side of the ramp, and the garden in front of the windows in the welcome center.

Was that effort on their parts to gain forgiveness?  To impress others?  To put a star in their crowns?  No. None of the above.  It was a response of the heart.  And so you don’t see those people’s name on signs that say landscaping by so-and-so.     

There are a lot of things like that that go on here… all the time…from cooking meals for the back side, to listening to others fears.  Not everyone knows about them.  But the person doing them is not doing them for the honor among us, or seeing their name in italics in the newsletter … No, they’re doing it out of gratitude and appreciation and love for God.

Now, someone’s going to ask: Well then … how do you get Christians to be more appreciative of the gifts they have received from God?

Well, what’s the motivation behind that question?   If all we want is giving to increase, more volunteerism, an increase discipleship …then aren’t we thinking more about the gifts… than about the love… that motivates those gifts??

Wouldn’t it seem like manipulation if we were to guilt people into greater “giving” to show how much they truly love God?

So, we can’t go that route.  It would seem from our text today that Love itself motivates its own response.   So rather than focus on the whether our flask is Alabaster or not…

What about all of us focusing on experiencing God’s love more fully… and see what God Himself brings forth from that?   I think Jesus would approve.

In Him.

Amen.  
 

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